Dear Fourth graders of Forest,

Thanks for your letter; I received it on my cabin door today (March 30.) This trip has been fun, and has already changed my whole perspective on the world. In response to the questions you mailed me, the weather in general has been warm, if not blistering hot. Brazil was in the 80’s and mildly humid, it was mostly the hot sun that stood out in Brazil, it also rained a bit while I was there but only in the evening. In South Africa, it was an INTENSE dry heat, almost no humidity but temperatures that hit 110 and shade did not grant much relief from the heat. Mauritius was a lot like Florida, 80’s and high humidity, but there was almost always a cool breeze and we spent a fair amount of time near the beach with the cool sea air. India on the other hand, was a beast of a completely different nature, it was unbearably hot, easily topping 100 and humidity was very high, the heat was the most intense I have ever experienced, and air conditioning was hard to find. When we first reboarded the ship, it felt like an igloo even though it was in the 70’s onboard. I’ll keep you updated on the weather from the other parts of the world as I get there, I am currently set to arrive in Malaysia on the 2nd.
Cage Diving in South Africa was scary, we saw 9 sharks some of which neared 20ft long, a few rammed the cage while I was in it.
I’ll e-mail some pictures to my aunt so you can see them. They really are scary animals, and the teeth look like they could tear you to shreds.
The time changes, while the past few days have been interesting, as of this moment I am 9 and ½ hours ahead of Michigan, I am still on Indian time at the moment. Tonight at midnight I move my clock ahead ½ hour, and then 1 hour each night for the following two nights. This will put me exactly half way around the world from home!! Therefore, when the sun is setting here, it will be rising there!!!
The coolest thing I have experience so far, that’s a tough question to answer. A very tough question, so I’ll give you two answers. In South Africa, I went sky diving, which was the coolest physical experience I have ever had. We rolled out of the small 4 seater plane backwards and seeing it tear away from view as I fell for 6,000ft before the parachute opened. Although that was the coolest physical experience, I have had, by far the one experience that has had the most profound effect was working with handicapped and disabled children at a home for them. They were between the ages of 5-19 many of them around your ages. I will be posting pictures of it later. But we spent all day cleaning up the place and playing with the children. Then we brought them back on the ship, I had to carry several of them up the stairs in order to board the ship. It truly was a humbling experience.

Thanks for the letters, and I hope for more.

-Bryan